The streak is over, but it just might have made Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki a better ballplayer.

Tulo’s streak of 41 consecutive games reaching base — the longest of his career and the longest active streak in the majors — ended Tuesday night in the Rockies’ 9-0 loss to the Rangers.

Tulo had some interesting things to say about the streak after it was over. Asked what the key elements of his run were, he answered:

“Routine probably sticks out. I was very into my routine. My focus was high. When you have a streak, you get to those third and fourth at-bats and the focus is still there, even in a blowout or things like that.

“I think that’s part of the reason, too, why I felt myself playing a little bit better. I know it’s not right to say, because you shouldn’t lose focus. But I heard A-Rod once say that his goal for a season was to be into every single pitch. So for me. it was giving me that ability to be into every single pitch when I was at the plate.

“People say, ‘Well, why don’t you do that?’ Well, it’s hard to do that. But the streak gave me something to shoot for, and this will make me a better player from it.

“I think I was better, so hopefully I can be into every single pitch and pretend that something is on the line.”

Asked what made the streak difficult to maintain, Tulo said:

“Yeah, it’s hard. When you are losing games or there’s long innings or you just can’t get that big hit, all of those things factor in … When you put your head down and run back out onto the field, or somebody grounds into a double play, you get a little frustrated. It could be yourself, and you have to get yourself back up. So that’s why this game is so hard hard. There are so many ups and downs, it’s hard to stay on an even keel.”

During the streak, which began on May 26, Tulo batted .365 (57-for-156) with four doubles, 10 home runs, 34 RBIs and 18 walks. His streak was tied for the second-longest in Rockies history, as he joined Andres Galarraga (1996-97) and Todd Helton (2007-08).

Michael Cuddyer, now with the Mets, set the franchise record by reaching base in 46 straight games from April 23 to June 30, 2013.

Rockies first baseman Ben Paulsen celebrates after hitting a walk-off single to lift the Rockies to an 8-7 victory over Texas Monday night at Coors Field. (David Zalubowski, The Associated Press)

Just when you think you’ve seen everything at Coors Field … along comes Ben Paulsen.

As Rockies fan Jacob Lucy tweeted at me after the game: “Paulsen went from court jester to knight in shining armor” in the span of five innings during Colorado’s raucous 8-7 victory over the Texas Rangers Monday night at Coors Field.

ICYMI, here’s how it went down:

In the Ranger’s game-changing, three-run fifth inning, with one out and two men on, Prince Fielder grounded out to Paulsen, who stepped on first. Thinking he had recorded the third out, Paulsen began jogging to the Rockies’ dugout. Meanwhile, Texas starting pitcher Nick Martinez scored from third, and Rougned Odor, taking advantage of Paulen’s mental lapse, scored all the way from second, sliding home to beat Paulsen’s late throw. Fielder was officially credited with two RBIs on the strange play.

Rockies top prospect Jon Gray could be closing in on his first big-league start. (Jim Thompson, Albuquerque Journal)

If Sunday’s game was an audition for Jon Gray, he did quite well.

Colorado’s top prospect, who appears to be closing in on his big-league debut, pitched for the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes in front of Rockies senior director of player development Zach Wilson. Despite a few miscues, Gray took another step forward.

Gray (5-6, 4.57) had his ups and downs, throwing 84 pitches in five innings of work, allowing one unearned run while striking out seven and walking two.

The 6-foot-4 right-hander followed a leadoff triple to Dilson Herrera by striking out the side in the first. His own errant pickoff attempt to second base in the third inning led to the only run he allowed being unearned. He labored through 64 pitches in his first three innings before using just 20 in his final two innings and returned the final nine hitters he faced.

Gray, 23, is 2-2 with a 3.66 ERA in his last 10 starts with 59 strikeouts in 59 innings. As I wrote in my Sunday column, the Rockies are debating the pros and cons of promoting Gray, the third overall pick of the 2013 draft.

For the record, the Isotopes beat the Las Vegas 51s 8-1 in a game delayed 1 hour, 47 minutes because of rain and because the stadium lights went out.

National League All-Star Troy Tulowitzki #2 of the Colorado Rockies bats in the sixth inning against the American League during the 86th MLB All-Star Game at the Great American Ball Park on July 14, 2015 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Rob Carr, Getty Images)

Nolan Arenado, DJ LeMahieu and Troy Tulowitzki have put up big numbers this season — a combined .305 batting average with 38 home runs and 154 runs batted in. Certainly well deserving of their all-star recognition.

However, the Colorado Rockies’ infield trio struggled at the All-Star Game, batting a collective 0-for-4 Tuesday against the American League.

It shouldn’t have been a huge surprise, however. The Rockies’ batters, as inflated as their statistics are during the regular season, have historically struggled in the Midsummer Classic. Colorado hitters have combined to go just 9-of-63 from the plate over the years — a paltry .143 batting average — with two homers and four RBIs.

Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitcher Mark Melancon throws against the St. Louis Cardinals during the ninth inning of a baseball game, Friday, July 10, 2015, in Pittsburgh. Melancon earned his 29th save of the season as the Pirates won 5-2. (Keith Srakocic, The Associated Press)

There’s going to be another Colorado tie at Tuesday night’s MLB All-Star Game aside from the three Rockies.

Pittsburgh’s Mark Melancon, who graduated from Golden High School, will be participating in his second all-star game — he made his first appearance in 2013, but didn’t enter the game. The Pirates closer is having a stellar season, compiling a 1.47 ERA and a Major League-leading 29 saves in 44 appearances this year.

Melancon was selected in the ninth round of the 2006 MLB draft by the New York Yankees.

Interesting tidbit: Boston utilityman Brock Holt, the player whom Melancon was traded for in 2012, is an all-star for the American League.

The Rockies are hosting a vote party from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant downtown (on Blake Street between 15th and 16th streets), encouraging fans to tweet #Tulo to vote for Tulowitzki (As my co-worker Emilie Rusch pointed out, there’s a “cute little emoji” in the tweet when you use the hashtag). Fans can also vote by texting “N5″ to 89269.

Tulowitzki is one of five finalists, which include Cincinnati’s Johnny Cueto, New York Mets’ Jeurys Familia, Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw and Cardinals’ Carlos Martinez.

“I’m not a big fan of it,” Tulowitzki said. “I won’t be campaigning for myself or shooting in text votes for myself. If I gather enough votes from the fans, it would be much appreciated. And it would be an honor. But I don’t think I’ll do much campaigning.”

The colors — green and blue — pay homage to the city’s former NHL team, the Whalers, who relocated to Greensboro, N.C. in 1997, becoming the Carolina Hurricanes. The logo is a green-bearded billy goat gnawing on a chewed-up, broken baseball bat. The firm that designed the logo also created ones for the Richmond Flying Squirrels and Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.

“This is an extremely exciting day for our franchise as we unveil our new identity,” Yard Goats general manager Tim Restall said to the Courant. “Yard Goats Baseball is all about family entertainment and having fun at Dunkin’ Donuts Park and we feel that this logo represents just that.”

The Yard Goats are relocating from New Britain next season and will play in the new $56-million, 9,000-capacity Dunkin’ Donuts Park.

A top pitching prospect picked his way through seven-plus innings Tuesday at Coors Field. His name was Andrew Heaney.

At 24 years old, the rookie Heaney pitched in just his third game this season for the Angels and first away from Anaheim. He won his first major-league game last week, against the Yankees. Against the Rockies, he allowed two runs on eight hits. He struck out five in 7 ⅓ innings. The Angels blasted the Rockies, 10-2.

Washington Nationals’ Bryce Harper (34) watches his two-run homer as he holds his Independence Day-themed bat during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants at Nationals Park, Saturday, July 4, 2015, in Washington. (Alex Brandon, The Associated Press)

Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper knows how to ‘Murica.

Wielding a bat bedazzled with an American flag design, the 22-year-old cranked a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning Saturday against San Francisco. Seems fitting for the Fourth of July.

PHOENIX — Jenny Cavnar has quite a baseball pedigree. She gets a chance to exhibit it in a new forum — and make some history — beginning Thursday night when the Rockies take on the Diamondbacks at Chase Field.

Cavnar, a sideline reporter and studio host for ROOT Sports Rockies coverage since 2012, will join Jack Corrigan and Jerry Schemmel in the KOA radio booth for Thursday, Friday and Saturday’s games.

It was Corrigan who asked Cavnar to help out with the KOA broadcast. According to KOA, Cavnar is the first woman to do color commentary on the radio for a National League team.

Suzyn Waldman has been the color commentator for New York Yankees baseball, working with John Sterling on radio broadcasts, since 2005, first for WCBS-AM and currently for WFAN in New York City.

Corrigan and Schemmel will be splitting time with ROOT Sports TV coverage, filling in for usual play-by-play man Drew Goodman for those three games. Goodman will rejoin the ROOT broadcast team for Sunday afternoon’s game.

Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado is a favorite to hit the most homers in the majors this season, but the oddsmakers make his team a huge long shot to contend for a playoff spot. (Daniel Petty, The Denver Post)

After their 4-1 loss at Oakland Wednesday afternoon, the Rockies’ record is 34-44 (.436) and they sit in fifth place in the National League West, 9 1/2 games behind the Dodgers, who play at Arizona on Wednesday night.

On July 1 last season, after a 7-1 loss at Washington, the Rockies were 36-49 (.424) and in fourth place in the NL West, 12 1/2 games behind the Dodgers.

In other words, they are treading water.

So it comes as no surprise that the oddsmakers aren’t particularly bullish on the Rockies. In the latest odds posted by Bovada, the Rockies are 200-1 long shots to win the World Series. That’s a bit better than the 250-1 odds posted on June 2.

Colorado is a 100-1 long shot to win the NL West and the odds are 75-1 they will win the NL pennant.

Nolan Arenado, in three big-league seasons, has five multi-home run games. And three came in the last week. His hot streak on Monday earned him the National League player of the week award, MLB announced.

In six games over the past week, the Rockies’ third baseman hit .391 (9-for-23) with a baseball-best seven home runs and 14 RBIs. He scored 10 runs in those six games, the second-most in the majors.

On top of it, Arenado has at least one hit, one run scored and one RBI in each of his past seven games. That ties the longest streak in baseball since 2010. Only Miguel Cabrera matched the mark, in 2013, in his MVP season for the Detroit Tigers.

Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, right, commits a throwing error after fielding a ground ball off the bat of Milwaukee Brewers’ Gerardo Parra in the sixth inning of a baseball game Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Denver. Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado, left, looks on. (David Zalubowski, The Associated Press)

A pair of Colorado Rockies are among the leaders in their respective positions in the latest National League All-Star vote update, which was released Tuesday.

Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and third baseman Nolan Arenado are ranked third and fourth, respectively, in their positions. Tulowitzki has 3,074,831 votes, roughly half of what leader Jhonny Peralta of the Cardinals has. Arenado has 2,380,227 votes — more than 1.1 million behind St. Louis’ Matt Carpenter.

Washington outfielder Bryce Harper leads all NL vote-getters with more than 9.2 million votes, breaking San Francisco catcher Buster Posey’s all-time record of 7.6 million in 2012. Former Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday — now with St. Louis — moved past the Giants’ Nori Aoki for the third spot in the outfield. Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton rounds out the outfield.

In the second year of baseball’s manager’s challenge video replay review system, the Rockies may have found their first review of a review Wednesday in the third inning at Coors Field.

With the Astros ahead 3-0, with two outs, Charlie Blackmon stole second base. But his momentum bounced him up off the bag and Houston shortstop Carlos Correa held a tag his leg. So Astros manager A.J. Hinch challenged the call. It was an easy video replay decision and the call was overturned.

Then it got weird. Blackmon was clearly out. But Colorado manager Walt Weiss stormed out to argue with crew chief Jerry Layne, who was the ump at second base. Weiss, though, wasn’t arguing the out call. He was upset that Houston even put in a claim.

Rockies manager Walt Weiss chose not to use slugger Carlos Gonzalez in a key pinch-hit spot in Monday night’s loss to the Astros. (Daniel Petty, The Denver Post)

Houston — Here was the situation:

Monday night, top of the ninth, the Rockies trailing the Astros 6-3. They have Ben Paulsen on second after a single, and Corey Dickerson on first after a fielding error by Astros first baseman Chris Carter.

Utility infielder and part-time left fielder Rafael Ynoa, 0-for-2 with a walk on the night, comes to the plate. He grounds out into a 1-6-3 double play to end the game. Ynoa is hitting .246 with no home runs and five RBIs in 69 at-bats.

The question: Why didn’t Rockies manager Walt Weiss use slugger Carlos Gonzalez as a pinch-hitter for Ynoa? CarGo, who’s struggled at the plate all season but has come on a bit lately, is hitting .242 with seven home runs and 20 RBIs in 211 at-bats.

Here was Weiss’ explanation Tuesday morning:

“I thought about it. ‘Raffy’ is a tough out and I was trying to extend the inning there. I thought about using CarGo in a couple of different spots that last inning. I decided against it.”

Gonzalez is in the starting lineup for Tuesday’s game, so he was healthy and available Monday night.

Asked if, in retrospect, he would have used CarGo, Weiss laughed, then answered: “In retrospect I would have done a lot of different things over the course of the year. That’s kind of how it works. It was certainly a viable option to use CarGo.”

Rockies pitcher Jorge De La Rosa is on the verge of becoming the winningest pitcher in franchise history. (Ben Margot, The Associated Press)

Miami — Jorge De La Rosa can make Rockies history Sunday afternoon if he can beat the Miami Marlins.

The veteran left-hander needs one win to become the franchise leader in wins, with 73. He’s currently tied with right-hander Aaron Cook with 72. Earlier this season, De La Rosa became the franchise leader in career strikeouts, passing Ubaldo Jimenez on May 21. Jimenez had 773 strikeouts from 2006-2011. De La Rosa has 788 career Ks in a Rockies uniform.

To set the victory record on Sunday, De La Rosa could use a little help from an offense that is taking an early summer siesta. During the current four-game losing streak that began Wednesday at Coors Field against the Cardinals, the Rockies have scored four runs on just 25 hits. They have walked a grand total of four times, while striking out 38 times.

Stanton question: Miami slugger Giancarlo Stanton — who leads the majors with 23 homers and 59 RBIs — has pounded the Rockies in the first three games of this four-game series. He’s hit .545 (6-for-11) with two homers, two doubles, eight RBIs and three runs scored.

Why not just pitch around him? Or at least pitch to him extra carefully? That was the question I posed to manager Walt Weiss Sunday morning.

“That’s been our game plan all series,” Weiss said. “But it’s tough when the guys in front of him are getting on base and there is nowhere to put him. Still, we are trying to pitch him carefully, but any mistake we have made has been hammered. He’s really locked in right now.”

Dickerson update: The news on Corey Dickerson Sunday morning was better than it was Saturday night when he left the game in pain the sixth inning when the plantar fasciitis in his left foot flared up.

“It’s better, not nearly as bad as it was before I went on the DL,” Dickerson said. “I wasn’t scheduled to play today anyway. I’ll be back on the field soon.”

Said Weiss: “Corey’s actually doing pretty well today. It was good news. He wasn’t going to be in the lineup today anyway after his foot flared up last night. I want to pick spots to get him off his feet, so that will be the plan moving forward.”

Former Rockies all-star first baseman Andres Galarraga shares a few laughs with former teqammate Eric Young and current Rockies right fielder Carlos Gonzalez on Saturday before the Rockies played the Marlins in Miami.

Miami — There were smiles all around the batting cage Saturday afternoon at Marlins Park.

It couldn’t be helped, not with Andres “The Big Cat” Galarraga on hand.

“One of the great smiles of all time, and he wore it 24-7,” said Rockies manager Walt Weiss, who played with Galarraga for four years in Colorado (1994-97) and three in Atlanta (1998-2000).

Galarraga, who lives about an hour north of Miami in West Palm Beach, was celebrating “Venezuela Day” at Marlins Park by throwing out the first pitch. Galarraga, 53, was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on June 18, 1961.

“This is special, against the Rockies, and in Miami,” said Galarraga, who wore a purple-striped shirt for the occasion.

The Big Cat, of course, was the Rockies’ first big star. Under the tutelage of manager Don Baylor, he resurrected his career in 1993, hitting .370 to win the National League batting title in the Rockies’ first year of existence. The nimble first baseman was a three-time all-star with the Rockies.

Galarraga hit 399 career homers for seven different teams in his long career, but being in Miami, the subject of his most famous home run came up Saturday. It was a towering grand-slam off the Marlins’ Kevin Brown on May 31, 1997 into the upper deck at Pro Player Stadium. It was originally called one of the longest homers ever hit, traveling 579 feet. The homer was later reduced to a more modest 529 feet.

Chris O’Dowd, a Double-A catcher in the Atlanta Braves organization and the son of former Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd, was tagged with an 80-game suspension without pay Wednesday after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs, Major League Baseball said.

O’Dowd tested positive for “testosterone metabolites of exogenous origin,” the commissioner’s office said. He violated Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program rules.

A catcher with the Mississippi Braves, O’Dowd’s suspension starts immediately.

He was a 23rd-round pick of the San Diego Padres in 2012 out of Dartmouth. After the Padres released him, O’Dowd signed a minor-league deal with the Rockies in March of 2013. First-year Colorado GM Jeff Bridich in January traded O’Dowd to the Braves in January as part of a deal for pitchers David Hale and Gus Schlosser.

O’Dowd was hitting .304 in 26 games in the Southern League this season.

Dan O’Dowd, now a commentator with MLB TV, ended a 15-year tenure as Rockies general manager after the 2014 season.

Patrick, a third-generation Colorado native, is back for his second stint covering the Rockies. He first covered the team from 2005-2009, helping chronicle “Rocktober” in 2007 and also following the team’s playoff run in 2009.

Nick Groke has worked at The Denver Post since 1997, as a sports reporter, city reporter, entertainment writer and digital editor and producer, among other newsroom posts. He also writes regularly about boxing, soccer, MMA and NASCAR.